Cruise is playing Jack, a man whose job it is to travel down regularly to a ruined, futuristic Earth and repair drones who keep marauding extraterrestrials away from the planet’s surface and the cities above it. He has a connection with lover Julia (Chastain), who is his eyes and ears when he’s on the surface. But then a life pod crashes, containing a mysterious woman (the part still to be filled), and launches him on another adventure.

Much of the plot (which was most recently polished by Toy Story 3’s Michael Arndt) is still shrouded in secrecy, and the producers have been cagey about talking too much about who is truly up for which role. But Atwell should surely be in with an advantage – after all, she’s already tested against Cruise for a role in Jack Reacher adaptation One Shot, and though she didn’t get that part, at least he knows what she can do.